A common form of decorative lighting for restaurants, clubs, and similar establishments is the use of small individual oil lamps on tables, which when lit provide a candlelike lighting effect without the several disadvantages of traditional candles. Such lamps typically comprise a canlike base which serves as an oil container, and a wick assembly fitted into a centrally located opening in the top of the base, which is also the fill opening when the wick assembly is removed. In addition, such lamps often have a chimney mounted on the base, and perhaps a lampshade carried by the chimney.
Despite their attractiveness and general superiority to candles, decorative oil lamps present a troublesome operating problem to restaruant operators, because they must be refilled with oil on a regular basis, such as weekly. The filling operation either involves gathering all of the lamps from their separate locations on the tables, filling them from a centrally located (and usually large) oil tank, and returning them to the tables after filling, or carrying a small oil container and funnel from table to table to fill the lamps one-by-one at the tables. Either method is tedious, involves a repeated risk of spillage, and a certain degree of danger. The general level of lighting in many restaurants is deliberately made low, and this means that the second method involves working in semi-darkness, which aggravates the problems inherent in it.